schemes, of sub prime lending, they will not bailout -- we need some kind of long-term low interest bank. there needs to be some plan other than closing schools in chicago and philadelphia and putting detroit -- that is no urban policy. that means plan for economic regeneration. right now our focus is not that. you think about $2 trillion on the wrong target in iraq. you think the government surplus, deficit cost over 3 trillion for the wealthiest americans and now poverty is expanding 50 million in poverty. and 40 million on food stamps. we must in fact adjust our priorities. >> we've got less than a minute less. youth getting out of college. explain to us what is going on

there. >> the historical black cool edges, 15,000 student can cannot go back it school because they cannot get the fund ppg but not just them. student in oklahoma right near the student loan defaults. it is affecting student everywhere. president want more kids to graduate, more are being locked out. with trillion dollar student loan debt. and credit card debt. there must be some plan for student loan debt for giveness and prioritize education of our children makinged cancation affordable. >> all right, jeff rand jesse jackson, you always say it in a way we can get it and understand it very clearly. thank you for joining us here to knit. >> hope to see you next week. >> that's "the ed show." this is michael eric dyson in for ed schultz. hubris, the iraq war, starts now. good evening. thanks for being with us tonight. this is a jint resolution of

congress passed in 1964. the signatures here, speaker of the house ep representatives, president of senate and down here, big one, that is the signature of the president of the united states. this resolution passed o not a friday. the tuesday before the president had gone on tv under a live late night urgent broadcast. >> fellow americans -- >> he said the united states navy had come under attack. there was open aggression on the high seas against the united states of america. the result was, the gulf of tunkin resolution. it happpassed in the house unanimously. turns out it got snookered. did not happen the way they said it happened. the way they urgently and sternly informed us that it happened. but it would be seven years before this was repealed. by then, the escalation that this levered us into had become the longest yet war in u.s. history. a war that defined an era, that indellably tattooed leaders who

made it happen or who did not stop it from happening. we say that vietnam changed our politics forever. but less than 40 years after this, again, a a campaign directed at the highest levels of government to get us to agree it a war based on something that did not happen. the way they said it happened. it was a month's long campaign. in 2002 and 2003. and it worked. it is a decade now, since it worked. since they got that war. how did it work? why did it work? and could it work again? nbc news correspondent michael and isixopff and david corn co-authored a book called hubris. we are still too close to know if this is biggest disaster in modern u.s. history. we will define its generation of

leaders too. whether this is the first line of the obituaries of the men and women who caused that war. if we do not understand what happened and adapt as country to resist it, then history says, we are doomed to repeat it again. here's what happened. >> the people of the united states and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. >> my belief is we will in fact be greeted as liberators. >> there's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be u.s. taxpayer money and it starts with the answer to the

iraqi people. >> you go to war with the army you have and not the army you might want or wish to have. >> the search is under way tofo those who are behind these evil acts. i've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.

>> what weighed on many of us is the 9/11 attack revealed major vulnerabilities. iraq had been a big problem even before 9/11 and became even bigger and more urgent in light of 9/11. america's greatest national security failure since pearl harbor hurls its leaders into a major national security response. >> and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. >> osama bin laden and his al qaeda terrorists network are the immediate target. but the day after the attacks president george w. bush comes to the white house situation room and ordered counterterrorism director, richard clark, to look into an iraq connection. >> when i said, mr. president, we will do that of can course, but we've done it before and

rather recently and the answer has always been no. and it is likely to be no this time. he didn't like that answer. and he got mad. >> i was in the room during time. and he was very adamant about perhaps seeing whether or not iraq could conduct such an operation against the united states. i was surprised when the president left the room. i said, i believe secretary wolfowitz got to him. >> paul wolfowitz, bush's secretary of defense had is a dam on his personal enemy's list for two decade. >> every time he survives something, he signs something, i outlast my enemies and if you are on the wrong list when i'm still around, you will be in trouble. >> paul wolfowitz had become convinced that if we looked strongly enough, look closely enough, we would find the hand

of saddam hussein behind virtually every terrorist attack on the united states. >> even before 9/11, wolfowitz and undersecretary of defense douglas fife had been driving administration policy on iraq pz? some of us believed you will have a saddam hussein problems forever unless you get rid of him. >> reading notes from the afternoon of 9/11 showed donald rumsfeld tasking a top aid it find the best info fast. good enough to hit saddam hussein. he asks the aid to get information from wolfowitz. >> we all looked at each other like, what the hell are they talking about. saddam hussein. bin laden hates him. there is no connection between saddam hussein and al qaeda. >> word goes out to all of the

intelligent services. find the connection. >> first, though, the war on terror goes to afghanistan. to capture or kill osama bin laden and destroy the taliban regime that supports al qaeda. by november, the enemy is on the run, forced to flee into the mountains and across the boreder to pakistan. by while bin laden remains at large, washington's attention turns to iraq. to saddam. >> i think the united states, since desert storm, always had a various planning with respect to iraq. >> operation desert storm. also known as the first gulf war. in 1991, following iraq's invasion of kuwait, a u.s.-led coalition of 34 countries drives saddam's forces out of kuwait and december mates the iraqi

army in six weeks. but despite that overwhelming victory, president george h.w. bush faces criticism at home for not going all the way it baghdad to rid the world of saddam hussein. >> i made very, very clear from day one, that it was not an objective of the coalition to get saddam hussein out of there, by force. >> dick cheney, defense secretary at the time, supports the first president bush's restraint. >> i think we got it right. conversations i had with leaders in the region afterwards, there were concern we not get into a position where we were an imperialist power, willie nilly moving into capitols in that part of the world taking down governments. >> after the gulf war, bush and his successor, bill clinton, send u.s. planes to provide air

cover for vulnerable populations in northern and southern iraq. the u.n. security council imposes harsh sanctions and sends in weapons inspectors to dig deeply for iraqi wmd capability, weapons of mass destruction. >> this went on for years. at a certain point, unbeknownst to weapons instructors, that we pretty much accounted for the whole system but we didn't know that. >> saddam refuses to further so they pull out. saddam seals iraq off from the west. in a 1998 letter to president clinton, paul wolfowitz, donald rumsfeld and either neoconservatives urge the president to take action to remove saddam's regime from power. the neocons align with an ex

patriot. he head the iraqi congress, defectors lobbying to get rid of saddam. >> i say to you now that the opposition is united in its aim of getting rid of saddam and establishing democracy. >> he was a very impressive and effective spokesman for the iraqi opposition to saddam. >> very slick operator who was skillful enough, to contain the idea that he could step in as a new leader of iraq. but that was totally divorce from realities on the ground. >> i george walker bush to solemnly swear -- >> when george bush is sworn in in 2001, rukss feld, wolfowitz and fife take the r reigns of policy. vice president cheney switches course and supports regime change in iraq. motive awaits opportunity.

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iraq continues to flaunt its humility to support terror. this is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. states like these even their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil arming to threaten the peace of the world. >> when i heard the axis of evil speech, i thought, well, something's going to happen. >> the idea was, take actions after 9/11 that would so shock state supporters of terrorism around the world that we might be able to get them to change their policies regarding support for terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. >> general franks is both a

warrior but also a wise and inspiring commander. >> a declassified memo from november 2001 reveals that donald rumsfeld met as early as then with general tommy franks to review plans for the decan cap tags of the iraqi government. they decuss ideas of how to start a war. one suggestion is to create a dispute over wmd inspections. >> is a regime that agreed to international inspections then kicked out the inspectors. >> 9/11 made it politically possible for the first time to persuade the american people to break a tradition of not launching offensive wars. >> the pressure it find evidence falls heavily on all 15 u.s. intelligence agencies. >> the extremely strong policy win that was blowing at the time and that everyone in government corridors felt made it

absolutely clear what was preferred and not preferred. atta, leader of alkied yeah 9/11 hijackings. from prague can comes a czech intelligence report of a photograph allegedly showing atta meeting with a high ranking iraqi intelligence officers. the photograph of the supposed meeting is never made publicly available. >> mohamed atta was 5'5", 5'6". the guy in the photograph was muscular, thick and had a neck of the size of two of my necks. i'm like, that's not atta in the photograph but send it to the lab anyway. in my mind, the matter is put to bed. >> even without definitive evidence, the vice president goes public with it. >> it's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to prague and he did meet with senior official the iraqi intelligence service in czechoslovakia last april.

>> i was sitting in my den in my home, washington, d.c., and i remember looking at the tv screen saying, what did i just hear? and i first time in my life, i actually threw something at the television. because i couldn't believe what i had just heard. >> over and over again, vice president, for years, o wo suld say, we had a report rort of this meeting. it's true, there was a report. and nobody believed it. that's what they didn't add. >> we clearly know that there -- >> in a pbs interview on the news hour with jim letterer, national security adviser condoleezza rice gives more certainty of saddam hussein's terrorist link. >> we know too that several of the detainees in particular some high ranking detainees, have said that iraq provided some

training to al qaeda in chemical weapons development. >> the key, high ranking detainee, rice is referring to, is an al qaeda commander. >> he is at first interrogated by the fbi, using standard interrogation techniques. but the cia wants more. they seize control of him. they send him to eej ip where he is rendered and turned over to one of the most brutal intelligence services in the world. >> this is al-ibi years later in a libyan prison visited by his family. this video was recently located by michaelis cough. >> al-ibi coughs up this story that he hadn't told bi before, that saddam was training al qaeda in chemical and biological weapons.

the single most frightening story that could have been told post 9/11. >> almost from the outset the intelligence community has doubts about the claim. >> 2002 cia report states that questions persist about al-ibi's truthfulness and in some instances he has fabricated information. >> after the information, al-libi will recant the story extracted by the egyptians brutal interrogation. >> what we said at the time is look, he said two different things and two different times. and we will tell the policy consumers and other analyst in the community both stories. you choose to believe what you choose to believe. but i don't know which one is accurate. >> the administration chooses to believe the connection. >> we've learned that iraq has trained alcan kieda members in bomb making. in poisons. and deadly gasses. >> right up to the war and

beyond, it remains a key administration argument for war. and the public largely trusts it to be true. >> if you look at all of the key pieces of evidence, that they presented publicly at the time, on every single one of them, not only was there doubt, there was debate. within the intelligence agencies of the u.s. government. >> the intelligence community assessed that saddam hussein was building a mobile biological weapon escapebility to avoid detection by the u.s. andity allyes. the assess many was based almost entirely on one source from the german government, a source named curveball. >> his real name, as far as they know, is rafid, amed, alwan. an iraqi engineer who makes his way to germany and tells german intelligence that he worked in saddam's weapon house used to make weapons of mass destruction. >> in the intelligence community, curveball was known

to be a fabricator. he could not be relied upon. his intelligence had been sort of stam 7ed, do nstamped, do 7b disseminate, this is useless. >> u.s. intelligence agencies rely solely on german reports. they never actually questioned him themselves. >> in this 2011 interview with britain's newspaper, "the guardian "the man called curveball confirms the lies of his prewar claims. >>"the man called curveball confirms the lies of his prewar claims. >> the man called curveball confirms the lies of his prewar claims. >>. >> this particular issue about the supposed mobile labs, was mishandled all the way around. and then become the very heart

of the whole case about unconventional weapons. >> with dubious evidence like that, the white house will present its case for war. [ lorenzo ] i'm lorenzo. i work for 47 different companies. well, technically i work for one. that company, the united states postal service® works for thousands of home businesses. because at usps.com® you can pay, print and have your packages picked up for free.

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the case of saddam hussein, a sworn enemy of our country, requires candid appraisal of the facts. simply stated, there is no doubt that saddam hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us. >> i had a seat to the stage next to where he was speaking and i literally bolted at that -- >> with our help, a liberated iraq can can be a great nation once again. >> vice president dicheney's speech is selling to the american people who white house insiders call, the product. ? thank you very much.

>> it was a shock. a total shock. i couldn't believe the vice president was saying this. and doing work for the cia on iraq wmd through a 5u8 of the briefings i heard at langley, i never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program. that's when i began it believe, they are getting serious about this. they want to go into iraq. >> two weeks after the speech, cheney again mace hic chen ginzbur cheney again makes his speech. >> he is acquiring the equipment he needs in order to build uranium rich weapons of mass destruction. >> saddam and nukes, a terrifying prospect based on the cia discovery that iraq is attempting to purchase 60,000 aluminum tubes. some analyst become convinced that the tubes are intended to be used in center fuses to make

uranium for weapons. soon after the discovery, the department of energy gets hold of the actual tubes and asked engineering professor houston wood, an expert on gas center fusions to evaluate them. >> from the information they gave me, it took about 15 minutes to come to the conclusion that the tubes could not be used for gas infusions. they are too thick. too heavy. >> the energy department concludes that the tubes are for conventional rockets, not for nuclear weapons. but cia analyst stick to their position that the tubes are for center fuses and the white house embraces that position. administration sources leak the disputed findings to "the new york times" in september 2002. the paper runs its sensational scoop on the front page. >> this is -- >> within hours, dick cheney is quoting that scoop as fact on

"meet the press." >> it is now public that in fact, he has been seeking to acquire and we have been able to intercept him and prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel, the kind of tubes necessary to build a center fuse. >> i called my friend in oak ridge and said, are these the same tubes we were talking about last year. they said yes, i said, i thought we put a that to rest a year ago. >> four days later, commemorating first anniversary of 9/11, president george w. boush repeats the claim at the united nations. >> iraq made several attempts to buy high strength alum num tubes to used to enrich uranium for weapons. >> i think they took a great deal of satisfaction in able to be able to cite the supposedly liberal new york times in making their case for it. >> absent the aluminum tubes most of the community believes there is no sufficient evidence to assess that there is a nuclear program.

>> from the african country, the military agency informs the cia that it has the text after contract between iraq for saddam to purchase 4000 tons of yellowcake, a form of uranium suitable for weapons. >> there were extent document in ways in which iraq was negotiating buying the yellow ore. >> at the time, no one from u.s. intelligence had actually laid eyes on the documents. and they will ultimately turn out to be forgeries. but when a dia report on the yellowcake claim is presented to dick cheney, he orders the cia to dig deeper. the agency sends a veteran

diplomat with extensive experience in africa. former ambassador joseph wilson. >> i knew the foreign minister who was subsequently prime minister. i knew the minister of mines. it did not happen. could not have happened. just because of the nature of the uranium manufacturing. >> the most important thing to know about the yellowcake story is that the cia never believed it. >> even as speculation it is enough for administration officials to move ahead with planes it take out saddam. national security adviser condoleezza rice goes on cnn to alert the nation. >> the problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. >> what i was hearing and what i knew, did not jive. >> i asked one time at langley,

am i crazy or is there no credible evidence of an ongoing program. and i had a former deputy director of cia say to me, you're not crazy. >> but there are administration voices urging caution. secretary of state colin powell and his senior staff, who unlike counter parts of defense, are all former military men. they press to give a chance for sanctions to work. for inspections to keep saddam in check. >> the can concern was, we hadn't finished in afghanistan. if we took the war in iraq, it would take the emphasis off afghanistan, which subsequently, is what happened. >> the administration has saddam squarely in its sights. the time is to persuade congress to squeeze the trigger. >> one of the most serious responsibility responsibilities congress has is to cast a vote to send a young man or woman to war to die.

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>> i'm craig melvin. here is what is happening right now. a huge winter storm do dump major snow on the midwest before it moves northeast. tornadoes are possible further south as system moves east. three people are dead after a shooting at marine corps base in quantico, virginia. the gunman shoot two people before shooting himself. a series of bills will qualify as bail yut as they worked demonstrators rioted outside parliament. back to "hubris." with congress back from summer recess, administration leaders prepare it make their case to invade iraq. to eliminate saddam. inside the white house, paul wolfowitz's deputy, under secretary of defense, douglas fife, iraq hawk like his boss, presents a slide show to

national security officials that is full of questionable assertions. >> of all the places where intelligence was manipulated in the bush administration, the fife shop was the key place. >> there was a debate about how one characterizes the relati relationship between iraq and al qaeda. nobody made the argument there was no relationship between iraq and al qaeda. >> i want it thank -- >> pushing congressional leaders for quick passage of resolution to authorize the president to take military action. >> it is important to signal for the world to see that this country is united in our resolve, to deal with threats that we face. >> the president made the point that there was an urgency to take action, that it couldn't wait. he got very animated. he used uncharacteristically profanity and used the middle

finger to demjanj to demonstrat hussein's disdane for the united states and him pornly. >> democrats remain unconvinced. >> i'm still very skeptical about saddam hussein's intent and position. nothing has changed. the basis for that skepticism. >> senate intelligence committee requests a national intelligence estimate a comprehensive summary of the evidence. nie's are routinely delivered on intelligence issues. yet on this gravest of matters none yet exists. in three weeks the cia pulls together what is normally takes months. it is delivered just seven days before the congressional vote. >> the aluminum tubes are interesting. >> in my judgment, the cia director, george tenet had been a political spokesperson for the administration. that is not the role of the cia. too often towing the line the administration wanted him to

tow. >> we think we stumbled ton one avenue of a nuclear weapons program. >> there is no question there were erroneous judgments in that national intelligence estimate. the purpose was to sell a policy initiative, which was to go to war gebs iraq. >> 90-page classified ni ae that saddam is actively pursuesing wwmd program. the eye lum num tubes, yellowcake and weapons labs. but deep within the document are strongly worded descends that argues the evidence is weak, even wrong. >> the nie is sent over to congress. kept in classified vault. as far as we can tell only about half a dozen senators actually read it. had they done so, they would have seen that it was filled with decents. >> if i had read the intelligence estimate on iraq i probably would have been -- have done myself a favor by being

better informed with the intelligence rather than listening to the administration. >> as congressional resolution to authorize war is put to vote, most republicans stand solidly behind president bush? the forces of freedom are on the march and terrorists will find no safe harbor in this world. >> democrats are deeply divided. >> it is wrong for congress to declare war against iraq now before we have exhausted the alternatives. >> i urge senators to go down and the capitol mall and look at the vietnam memorial. >> for two months out from an election and no one, republican, democrat, independent, ever wants to be viewed as weak on national security. >> i will vote to give the president the authority he needs. >> the threat of saddam hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real. >> it is a vote that puts some spomt in the hand of our president and we say to him, use these powers wisely and as a last resort.

>> in my heart, i knew that a no to the authority for the president was the right vote. but yet, i was not strong enough to vote any conscience. >> the vote pass he without objection. >> the vote a overwhelming. 3-1 in senate, 2-1 in the house. the president has officially been given a free hand. >> the days of iraq acting as an outlaw state are coming to an en. >> powell walked into my office and he walked over to the window and said, i wonder what will happen when we put 500,000 troops in iraq and comb the country from one end to the other and find nothing. 's enturned around and walked back into his office. i wrote that down on my cal end ear as close to verbatim as i could. i thought that was a profound statement coming from secretary of state, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. >> the march to war begins in earnest. and it is collin powell who gets

the job of selling it to the world. >> what we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. >> anybody who says this was an intelligence driven war, i believe is mistaken. end, stop. >> [ male announcer ] when it comes to the financial obstacles military families face, we understand. our financial advice is geared specifically to current and former military members and their families. life brings obstacles. usaa brings retirement advice. google's backyard for the wbing it on challenge.. [fight bell: ding, ding] what's your preferred search engine? search engine, uhh, probably google. if we do a side by side blind test comparison, and you end up choosing google, you get an xbox. i'll bet you the xbox, you bet me your son. well let's look up what you need. okay, i would do the left. yeah? what?! i am a daddy! bing wins it! bing won. bing did win. people prefer bing over google for the web's top searches. don't believe it? go to bingiton.com and see what you're missing.

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for current and former military members and their families. get advice from the people who share your values. for our free usaa retirement guide, call 877-242-usaa. by the end of 2002, the u.s. military is headed to the gulf. congress is on board as are british prime minister tony blair and most of the mainstream media. the stage is set for war. a new u.n. resolution has forced iraq to submit to tough new arms inspections. but president bush is growing impatient. the defense department tells him that if he is going to war, he's

got to do it before the blistering desert summer. >> we move along the path of getting a good inspection going, that would probably come to fruition one way or the other, but once you start military forces flowing to the extent that we did for iraq, it's hard to pull them back. >> as the inevitable moves closer, president bush reargues the case. and ups the ante with 16 infamous words in state of the union address. >> the british government learned that saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa. >> that would be yellowcake. again. but by referring to a six-month-old british white paper the president doesn't end a claim discredited by his own intelligence service. >> it wasn't matter of lying about this or lying about that

but rather through the artistry of speech writers and case presenters, conveying an impression to the american people that certain things were true. >> it is a real slight of hand. and i think it is kind to call that disingenerous. >> on the heels of the president's speech, the a administration plays its ultimate trump card. it tasks secretary of state collin powell its most trusted public face, most reluctant warrior, to make the case against saddam at the united nations. he's given a week to pull that presentation together. >> he walked in my office with a sheath of papers in my handed and threw them down on my desk and says that's the script of my presentation at the united nationes. came from the vice president's office. >> it was junk. pure junk. i was in charge of putting it together. >> powell and wilkerson tore up ought original 48-page script and started over with a team from the state department and cia.

director george tenet subjects they base their presentation on the national intelligence estimate which unbeknownst to powell is a deeply flawed document. still, he is wary. >> we went into a room, he slammed the door shut. he said, sit down. and he sat down. we were the only two people in the room. he looked at me and he said, this bull [ bleep ] of contacts with al qaeda with # has got to be taken out. it's bull [ bleep ]. and i said, i agree with you. let's take it out. done. within a half an hour, tenet comes in, and explosively tells about this high level al qaeda operative who has been interrogated and admitted to these contacts. whoa. and we put it back in. >> that would be the dupus confession extracted from al-libi, the result of torture

bit egyptians. both of us convinced ourselves that if the intelligence committee believed what we were presenting, then we had to believe it. because they were the experts. >> i wrote part of speech and what i saw over the course of weeks, up until the night before he gave that speech, and in fact into the early morning, 1:00, 2:00 a.m., was, did this fit? is this compelling? who can pick a hole in this. i'm going to stand in front after billion people, what i say better be the clearest and most credible information we have. >> on february 5, 2003, the moment of truth arrives. >> the 4,701st meeting of security council is called to order. >> the world witnesses tocollin powell deliver the ultimate argument for war against iraq. >> what we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.

these are from human examples. >> i was at cia headquarters, and all of us would have gathered around the tv in the office to watch his speech live from the u.n. >> we have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails. >> those would be the confessions of the witness. >> i turn to a woman next to me who had filed this whole case of curveball much more closely than i. i said, what the hell is going on. my colleague said, i don't know. i don't know what's going on. what is this? >> we did not know he was in germany. we did not know he had a code name, curveball. we did not know that no u.s. intelligence personnel had never it teinterrogated. >> saddam hussein had a massive

nuclear weapons program that had several different techniques to enrich uranium. >> that would be information supplied by ahmed chalabi. the self appointed iraq expatriot government. >> we talked to chalabi on multiple occasions and they were hyping the type of information they put out. >> he is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to get aluminum tubes from 11 different countries even after inspections resumed. >> yet again, the aluminum tubes. >> i was incredibly disappointed when he brought out the comments about the aluminum tubes. i felt detried as an american and a scientist. >> telling how iraq provided trainings in these weapons to al

qaeda. fortunately, this operative is now detained and he's told his story. >> powell is referring to innen al sheikh, the same detainee they labeled a fabricator. powell takes 90 minutes to run through his persuasive litany of evidence. most of it will turn out to be at best inaccurate. >> thank you, mr. president. >> if you look at that speech in retrospect, there's a little too much of what we think and too little of what we know. that's on us as intelligence professionals. >> secretary powell set aside his misgivings and staked his integrity on this one moment, selling the war. >> though powell or anyone from the intelligence team lied, we

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hour, american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.

our nation enters this conflict reluctantly, yet our purpose is sure. >> the conquest goes quickly. and just as quickly, a country liberated from a dictator dissolves into chaos. >> freedom is untidy, and free people are free to commmake miss and commit crimes and do bad things. >> an administration eager to go to war, failed disastrously to plan for its aftermath, and after 19 months of scouring the country, the truth about saddam's weapons of mass destruction is finally revealed. >> there are no weapons of mass destruction in iraq, and there haven't been for a wrong time. >> a new report from a chief u.s. weapons inspector found iraq got rid of its weapons of mass destruction shortly after the first gulf war. >> i wasn't supposed to find d

wmd, i was supposed to find the truth. i didn't fail to find wmd. i succeeded in finding the truth. >> for the reasons you gave, saddam chose not to have those weapons. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> those are stunning statements. >> it was a terrible mistake. the cia had said we would find stockpiles we didn'tfia find. it was a disaster. >> you believed it was true at the time? >> yes, so did they. they were people who knew this information wasn't as solid as it was being presented to me. >> it's not just an intelligence failure. it's a failure to the very highest levels of decision making in america. george w. bush and richard bruce cheney would have gone to war with iraq and gotten rid of saddam hussein even if there wasn't any intelligeat